


Quentin vs. The Sober Light of Day

by sabrinachill



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mostly Stupidity, You Know You're In Trouble When Josh Is the Emotionally Evolved One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 19:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14339520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrinachill/pseuds/sabrinachill
Summary: A very stupid quest for true love, frozen whale snot, and a delicious ham sandwich.(Set in an unspecified time when everyone is in Fillory, royal, and relatively happy.)For The Welters Challenge, week 1





	Quentin vs. The Sober Light of Day

Quentin feels like warm death.

He’s so hungover that his toenails ache and he can count his heartbeat in his eyeballs. His head is somehow simultaneously too heavy and completely hollow, like something has scooped his brain out and replaced it with hot lead. 

And seven minutes ago Margo slammed into his room, screeching and shoving a roll of parchment in his face. 

“It’s a joke, right?” Quentin has finally managed to sit up in bed, reading over the note again and rubbing at the back of his neck, his fingers tangling a bit in his messy hair. “I mean, it’s gotta be a joke.”

“Don’t I fucking wish,” Margo says, stalking back and forth across his royal bedroom like an Amazon on a burning, bloodied battlefield. She leans over the bed and snatches the parchment from his hand, tosses it to the ground, and drives her stiletto through it. “I’ve looked in every mildewy corner of this crumbling shithole, and it’s all gone. The wine, the pills-“

“What about the weed?” The Eliot-shaped lump under the blankets finally speaks, his voice muffled and thick with sleep. 

“He even stole the rolling papers.”

“Bastard,” Eliot mutters, but it’s more despair than venom. He finally finds the energy to poke his head out of the covers and sigh, somehow still elegant despite his distress and epic case of bedhead. “Why would Josh do this? What does the note say again, Q?”

Quentin realizes that it's absurd to be weird about lying in bed with a man he’s had sex with more times than he can count, but he self-consciously tugs at the blankets pooled across his otherwise naked body before he retrieves the letter from the floor. 

“Uh, it says, ‘If you ever want to get fucked up again, you’re going to have to work for it. Complete my errands three, bitches! Bring unto me mushrooms from the fairy fields, ice from the lagoon, and a ham sandwich on rye from the Two Moons. I’ve cursed you so you will remain sober until the quest is complete. No magic allowed! No shortcuts! No loopholes! Talk to each other. Face. Your. Shit!’ And then there’s Josh’s signature. And a drawing of a hand flipping us off. And then an anatomically improbable sketch of an enormous cock and balls.”

There’s a long moment of silence while they process this bizarre betrayal. Quentin worries about what Josh means by talking to each other and facing shit. Eliot tries to remember if there’s an emergency flask stashed in one of his vest pockets. 

And Margo contemplates murder. 

“What a condescending little shit. I’m going to put my foot so far up his ass he’ll be giving me pedicures with his teeth.”

Eliot stretches, all long limbs and languid ease. “Well, doesn’t that paint quite the mental picture.” His arm falls over the edge of the mattress, his pale fingers posed like they’re wrapped around a ghostly martini glass. He looks confused and a little lost.

They’re all suffering from varying degrees of hangovers, the latest in the cycle of a long series of binges and recoveries. Empty bottles and full ashtrays litter just about every surface of the room, and Quentin’s boxers are dangling from the bedpost. He has a fuzzy memory of Eliot removing them with his teeth the night before.

Quentin shivers, and he’s not sure if it’s a chill or desire.

Because this - whatever this is between the two of them - is a variation on something that’s been happening more and more lately. Every time they’re messed up, actually, but neither of them have mentioned it in the sober light of day. 

And Quentin is starting to believe they never will. It hurts, the weight of everything left unsaid slowly building in his chest until he’s gasping, until his heart aches and he’s certain his ribs are about to snap. It should be impossible to go on this way, but the truth is that he’ll take Eliot any way he can. If they're so emotionally stunted that they have to hide behind the high, then Quentin can learn to live with it.

So he clears his throat and awkwardly shifts his weight.

“Yeah, so, okay. Our shit is gone and we need it back. Josh is an idiot, obviously, but this stuff is all easy to get. We can be done in a few hours and go back to normal.” He ignores the way his heart squeezes at the thought that their new normal requires him to constantly run from the truth. He’s exhausted.

“Or we can put out a royal decree to bring us his head in a basket,” Margo drawls while examining her nails, as if she’s considering shoving them through Josh’s neck and decapitating him with her bare hands.

Eliot skims over the note thoughtfully, then studies Quentin. Something solidifies in his dark gaze. 

“Let’s just do it, Bambi,” he finally says, propping himself up on his elbows. “We know where to find this stuff and we don’t typically go around beheading people who are...well, not friends, exactly, but...someone we kind of know?” He looks at Quentin again, the tiniest twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Besides, it’s an adventure, of sorts. A quest. You never know; it might sort of be fun.”

* * *

“You used to have a much better idea of what constitutes as _fun_ , Eliot.”

It’s twenty minutes later and they’re bouncing along a rutted dirt road in the royal carriage, Margo sprawled across the seat opposite Eliot and Quentin. “I can’t believe I’m about to waste half the day running errands for that furry fat fuck.” 

Quentin barely hears her. He’s too distracted by the way Eliot’s arm is draped across the back of the seat, the motion of the carriage repeatedly jostling Quentin up against him. It shouldn’t be awkward - he’s kissed every inch of Eliot, more times than he can remember - but in the clear daylight, with Margo watching, it feels like every touch means something more.

Maybe something Eliot doesn’t want him to feel.

Quentin straightens in the seat and pulls away for what feels like the hundredth time. “Sorry,” he mutters, tilting his head forward so his hair swings between his face and Eliot. 

Eliot shifts a fraction closer, but not quite touching. Quentin can feel the heat of him like a burning line down his right side, the soft brush of Eliot’s exhaled breath in his hair. 

“Don’t apologize; I welcome the distraction.” He leans closer, his voice a low rumble in Quentin’s ear. “And in case the last few weeks haven’t been clear enough, you have standing permission to touch the High King.”

Quentin isn’t sure what to make of it, if this is just Eliot’s usual flirtatiousness or somehow ( _please, dear God_ ) something more. But he’s certainly not feeling bold enough to ask.

Eliot smells like smoke and soap and mint, and Quentin can remember what it feels like to have his face pressed to the curve of Eliot’s neck, to breathe him in and drag his lips over the hard slope of Eliot’s shoulder. Quentin’s throat goes dry and his fingers are twitchy and he’s utterly consumed by simply _wanting_.

He is so monumentally fucked.

So his only response is to blush furiously and fidget with the seam of his pants - but the next time the carriage bounces them together, he lands up against Eliot’s side and doesn’t budge for the few remaining minutes of the ride. 

They ease to a stop and clamber out, blinking against the brilliant sunshine until their eyes adjust from the dark interior of the carriage. The mushrooms stretch before them in a wide white swath over the hillside, a few fairies wandering through and monitoring their crop. 

At the sight of them, Quentin and Eliot stop short, wondering how to do this without starting another fairy fight. 

Margo, however, has no such qualms. 

“Hey!” She yells, striding out into the field. “We planted these mushrooms, which means we’re entitled to harvest some, and you aren’t going to be bitches about it, understand?” By the time she’s finished speaking she’s already got half a dozen mushrooms tossed into a burlap sack they’d brought from the castle’s kitchen. And when the fairies just ignore her, Quentin and Eliot shrug and pitch in until it’s filled. 

“Well that was stupidly easy,” Quentin says. 

“It was Josh’s idea; of course it was stupid,” Margo says.

Eliot tosses the bag of mushrooms into the carriage. “So, we’re a third of the way through the dumbest quest ever invented. Hooray, I guess? What’s next?”

“The Hailing Hole.” 

Eliot arches an eyebrow. “That sounds like a condition that requires medical attention.”

Quentin smiles and scrapes his hair back into a messy bun, growing animated as he talks about his favorite subject - Fillory. “It’s actually a place named for the Hail Whale that lives in the lagoon not far from Whitespire. It’s a crazy cold creature - completely defying the laws of physics and biology, like, it must have antifreeze in its veins or something - and every time it surfaces to breathe, it turns the water around it into ice. Then it blows, and the ice breaks and shoots like thirty feet up in the air before falling back into the lagoon. And there’s sailors who work catching the ice and magically preserving it. It’s actually the only way we can have ice here in the summer.” He smiles. “I’ve been meaning to go see it; it’s supposed to be beautiful.”

Eliot and Margo stand and stare at him, dumbfounded. A Hail Whale. It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous. It’s like something out of a children’s fantasy story.

It’s so Fillory. 

“Okay, I’m in,” Eliot eventually says, his gaze soft and clear as he absently brushes a loose piece of Quentin’s hair back behind his ear. “I love it when you talk nerdy.”

Margo rolls her eyes so hard it’s a miracle they stay in her face.

“Ugh, _fine_. But you know what would make an ice-spewing whale even more beautiful?” she asks, stalking past them and swinging up into the carriage. “Ecstasy. But apparently the only way I get it back is to pick up frozen whale snot, so whatever. Let’s do this shit.”

Quentin and Eliot follow her, Quentin chewing on his lip to try to stay silent.

But he just can’t let it go. 

“It’s not actually the whale’s snot, it’s just the seawater around its blowhole that freezes-“

“I wish I could freeze your blowhole.” Margo grumbles. 

“Oh, don’t. I can think of a far better use for it,” Eliot says, and Quentin is blushing and grinning and desperately trying to contain the bubble of hope that’s expanding in his chest.

* * *

They’ve gone about ten feet down the road when a glowing, rectangular portal opens beneath Margo and promptly sucks her into it. She doesn’t have time to be shocked or frightened or anything, really. She’s just there, and then a fraction of a second later, she’s gone.

A scroll is tossed through, and the portal disappears as quickly as it opened. 

Stunned, Quentin scrambles for the note and reads it aloud. 

“‘I’ve decided that three’s a crowd. Complete the quest as a pair. Clothing optional. - Josh’ And then he’s drawn another grossly unrealistic dick.”

Eliot just laughs, relieved to know that Margo is fine - wherever she is - and slings an arm around Quentin’s shoulders.

“Well, all right, then.”

* * *

So they head down to the docks. The ice ships are nothing like the Muntjac - less elegant and magical, more simple and utilitarian. They’re a clunky, boxlike design coated in peeling white paint and scruffy sailors. But they have enormous decks and seem to be in good working condition, so the kings climb aboard. 

They stand at the railing as the ship glides out across the lagoon, legs braced against the movement of the choppy sea. A salty wind scatters Eliot’s curls across his forehead, and brilliant sunlight bounces off the dark seawater. 

Eliot’s hands look so strong and capable, wrapped around the ship’s railing, and Quentin is hit with a visceral memory of how those fingers feel wrapped around _him_. He finds himself speaking before he’s really thought it through.

“Why do you think Josh is doing this?” Quentin asks, his voice barely audible above the wind and waves. 

“Because he’s a dramatic attention whore?” Eliot responds. 

“No, I mean, why take what he took? All the pills and booze and everything? And then hijack Margo? Why tell us to face our shit?”

Eliot turns to face him but remains quiet, his gaze patient. He knows Quentin is working himself up to something, and he can wait. 

Quentin swallows, and stares fixedly at the horizon. “I think it might be my fault. I told him about us the other night. About how we’ve been…together.”

Eliot’s face stays carefully neutral. “That’s fine. It’s hardly a secret.”

“No, I mean I told him...” Quentin takes a deep breath, like he’s getting ready to dive to the depths of the dark sea, “I told him that it’s not just hooking up. Not for me, not anymore. I’ve been trying to hide behind being fucked up, like it doesn’t mean anything because I’m drunk and high, but it’s a lie and it’s kind of breaking me and-“

“Ice ahoy! Starboard side! Ready the tarps! Man your stations!”

The sailors shout and scramble suddenly, unfurling vast swaths of canvas, prying lids off of barrels, securing helmets on their weather-beaten heads. They’re a swarm of organized chaos across the deck, and one of them hurriedly pushes an enormous, sturdy umbrella into Eliot’s hand. He opens it over his head and takes a step back, but Quentin’s leaning far over the rail, gaping slack-jawed into the water. 

The whale is right there and _massive_. It looks to be made out of a thousand shades of shimmering blue crystal, like living ice, the water around it splintering and cracking as it rises through the sea.

In seconds the whale surfaces and blows with a mighty sound. The force shatters the thin sheet of ice and propels the shards far above their heads. For a long moment it seems as if they’re suspended, hanging in a shimmering cloud against the pale blue sky.

It’s incredible; it’s better than Quentin had even imagined it.

And then it’s falling, the air raining ice chips and chunks, some as large as baseballs. At the last second, Eliot hauls Quentin in against him, the umbrella magically protecting them from the battering hail. 

The world is all crystalline ice and fragmented sunlight, golden reflections dancing around them. It's just the two of them standing in a protective circle of calm amidst the frantically working crew, the patter of the ice against the deck, and the rise and fall of the sea.

Quentin laughs and watches it all with wonder, but Eliot watches Quentin. He’s so close that he can see the light reflected in Quentin’s eyes, feel the warmth of his skin so at odds with the icy air around them.

And Eliot’s finding it hard to breathe. Because it’s finally sinking in - what Quentin was rambling about right before the whale surfaced, what Josh's purpose of this stupid quest must have been. 

Quentin wants him, maybe _loves_  him.

And it doesn’t take Eliot long to decide what to do about it. 

He’s been waiting for Quentin to fall for him for what feels like a lifetime now, long enough that he never believed it would really happen. And he’s not waiting a second longer. He traces his free hand along the hard line of Quentin’s jaw, threading his fingers through his hair, and wraps them around the back of Quentin’s neck. 

Quentin looks up at him, surprised, his mouth falling ever so slightly open. So Eliot claims it with his own. 

And, oh _fuck_  does it feel good.

Quentin’s body had felt as frozen as the Hail Whale and Eliot has finally, suddenly thawed it. More than that, he's lit it on fire. Quentin's blood is fizzing and simmering, his skin electric and sparking. It’s not a first kiss - not by a long shot - but it’s the first one with this kind of weight and meaning and Quentin wants to drown under it. He wraps his arms around the hard, warm line of Eliot’s waist and clutches his shirt in his hands, pressing their bodies somehow even closer.

He can’t help it; he smiles and huffs a tiny laugh of pure joy against Eliot’s lips.

They kiss until the hail stops, until Eliot forgets to hold the umbrella and lets it clatter to the ship’s deck, until Quentin’s neck aches from arching up to meet Eliot’s mouth. 

And then they part, breathless, the ship nearly back to the port and laden with mountains of shimmering ice. Eliot beams down at Quentin, pulling him in and holding his cheek against his chest. 

“I’m actually going to have to thank Josh for stealing from me,” Eliot mutters against Quentin’s hair. 

Quentin grins at the rough sound of Eliot’s voice, the way he can feel it rumbling against his cheek. “There’s something you never thought you’d say.”

Eliot doesn’t get a chance to respond. A portal bursts open beneath their feet, and they tumble through. 

* * *

They collapse in a tangled pile of limbs and ice on the floor of the Whitespire throne room. 

“Hey guys,” Josh says, sitting cross-legged on a giant pillow with a bong in his lap. At a corner table, Margo waves. She’s on her third martini, chewing on a fat cigar, and playing poker with Tick, Julia, and the sloth.

Josh gestures toward the bar set up against the far wall. “Congratulations. You’ve completed your quest. Make yourselves a drink. Eat one of my trippy carrots. Whatever.”

Quentin shakes his head, trying to pull his leg free from where it’s trapped beneath Eliot. 

“No, we aren’t done. We only completed two of the tasks.”

Eliot manages to stand and tugs Quentin upright, threading their fingers together. “Quentin, darling, there’s a full bar over there and we’re back home. So kindly shut your lovely face.” 

Quentin frowns. “But what about the ham sandwich?”

Josh shrugs. “Yeah, I kind of wish you’d taken a bit longer to figure your shit out since I could use a snack, but whatevs. The real quest was to admit your feelings. Which-“ he gestures between their linked hands, “-you did. So, quest complete. Eat, drink, and make merry, my little lovebirds.”

They stand and glare for a long minute. “You’re an idiot,” Quentin finally says. 

“Already clued him into that one,” Margo calls out. “But I have to admit that I’m happy his little quest worked. You two needed it.”

“You stole from me. You lied to us.” Eliot’s voice is steel, and he lets go of Quentin. He draws himself up to his full height and strides across the room, heading directly for Josh. His face is intense and unreadable, and the High King crown on his head has never seemed more intimidatingly powerful.

Josh wonders briefly if he’s going to survive the day.

And Eliot’s pace doesn’t slow; he doesn’t stop. He just hauls Josh to his feet with surprising strength-

-and then wraps him in an enormous hug. “Thank you,” Eliot murmurs, soft and sincere. 

And then he drags Quentin off to his bedroom, drunk on nothing but love. 


End file.
